Reflecting on 2023: A Year of Growth, Learning and Unforgettable Moments!

by Rudrani Ghosh

“This was a fun activity. I wish that school was also this much fun, but it’s so boring,” says Surbhi, a student of eighth grade located in a village near Patna. Surbhi attended four workshops with us over the period of a year, and we saw her blooming firsthand from a shy, quiet, and self-contained child to a much more confident and self-assured young individual. It was not easy to bring her out of her shell, but steady encouragement, dividing her to be part of smaller groups, and consistently making her document her creations proved helpful.  

This was probably the best compliment we received for our work in 2023. As the year comes to an end, let’s take a moment to pause and look back at all we have done over the past twelve months.

  • This year, we focused more on developing long-term partnerships instead of conducting one-off workshops. We are happy to share that we have forged three long-term partnerships with Feminist Approach to technology (FAT), AmbaUjjwal Foundation, and Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion (CSEI), where we took multiple workshops based on our creative learning activities with their learners on a regular basis.
  • We conducted 14 workshops this year, through both virtual and physical modes, and crossed the reach of over 15000 learners and educators as the year ends.
  • Like previous years, we applied to a few grants and accelerator programs this year as well. We are proud to announce that we have received the esteemed Ernest Solvay grant of 10,000 euros from the King Baudouin Foundation.
  • Our online educational tool, ZubHub, our web and mobile platform for activity-based learning, was shortlisted to be on HundrED’s top hundred educational innovations of 2023. Check it out here → https://hundred.org/en/innovations/1-zubhub
  • We were selected and funded by Outreachy again this year to work with engineers and designers from countries all over the world. We worked with seven interns over two rounds from Cameroon, Uganda, Turkey, Nigeria, India, and they helped in improving and upgrading ZubHub massively.
  • We debuted many new features on ZubHub, such as the ability to create new teams and add creators to a team project with the help of our interns. We also revamped the landing page and overall improved the user experience of the platform.
  • One of our interns, Faridah from Nigeria, organized a workshop in the capital city of Abuja. This marks our first step in the African continent. The day-long workshop centered around introducing the children to ZubHub, building a toy car that runs on batteries, and uploading the project on ZubHub.  

Our aim for next year is threefold- firstly, we will be developing and promoting ZubHub further. Secondly, we will be creating more creative learning activities; and thirdly, we will conduct more workshops centered around our activities and ZubHub, in order to promote its usage. Stay tuned to our blog for more updates!